I
first met Kate Nace Day when I took part in the 2012 Fighting
Trafficking through Film forum, a project produced by the Boston Initiative
to Advance Human Rights. I was there as a panelist and a writer covering the
event.

Kate
was screening the trailer for her documentary in progress, A Civil Remedy . She was also participating in her capacity as a Suffolk
University Law School professor. Kate had moved into the documentary film space
as a way to augment conveying information about human trafficking to her
students. Her "a-ha" moment came when she screened The Day My God Died for
her class. The account of girls from Nepal, as young as 7 years old, being sold
into sexual slavery in India hit a nerve. It took the reality of the issue to a
new level.

We
kept in touch, and Kate invited me to her New York screening of the completed documentary.
(Full disclosure: I was more than surprised to see my name in the thank-you
credits. Kate graciously told me it was because I spent so much time talking
with her about women and documentary film when she first dipped her toe into
the creative waters.)

I
recently reached out to Kate to discuss her film, her impact on the 2011
Massachusetts anti-trafficking law, and her take on the distinctions between
"sex work," "sexual exploitation," and "abolition."

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Human sex trafficking is a very complex subject. Many Americans
believe that it only happens in foreign countries, when actually it is
occurring in all 50 states. Your film focuses on the story of Danielle, a
17-year-old girl who came to Boston in 2011 to study sociology. An invitation
to a party led to a relationship with a middle-aged man. He evolved from
"boyfriend" to pimp, and through coercion and physical violence forced Danielle
to work on the streets of Boston as a prostitute. She states in the film, "I
had no idea I was a human trafficking victim until I got out." How does this
happen?

"Sadly,
this happens to the thousands of American children who are found in
prostitution each year. Many of them are runaways, young teens trying to get
away from abuse or violence in their family, or from bullying at school. They
may be what we call a 'throwaway' -- a kid who is thrown out of the house
because of behaviors or chosen sexuality. Or, maybe, she's just the girl next
door.

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Every child who has been sexually assaulted is made more
vulnerable to sexual exploitation. She may never tell anyone. Her parents and
teachers, the healthcare and social service professionals, and an entire
criminal justice system may ignore all the signs. Then a smooth talking,
street-smart pimp comes along and pays attention to her in a way no one
previous has. It's as easy as that.

In
2015 The Georgetown Law Center published a study, The Girls' Story , about
the national crisis of violence against girls. It found that one in four
American girls experiences some form of sexual violence by the age of 18,
nearly half of all female rape survivors were victimized before the age of 18,
fifteen percent of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 12. The
stats are chilling."

You interviewed Siddhartha Kara , author
of Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. He talks
about the economic crime of forced labor and human trafficking within the
context of economics, finance, and law. Sexual trafficking has been referenced
as "rape for profit." It is more lucrative than selling drugs or weapons --
particularly because the "product" is resold endlessly. Trafficking has moved
underground and to the Internet. Backpage.com has netted $22 million in
prostitution-related ads. Is this what led to your thinking about a strategy to
allow survivors to file a civil claim in the courts for financial restitution?

"In
2011, Massachusetts was one of four states in the country with no comprehensive
human trafficking law. Massachusetts' Attorney General, Martha Coakley, had
proposed a bill and when the Boston Globe called me for a comment, I had only
one question: "Does the proposed law have a civil remedy provision?"

I
wasn't thinking about the economics of the sex industry. I was thinking about
how our justice systems -- criminal and civil -- treat sex trafficking victims.
Under our national law, anyone under the age of 18 who is sold for sex is a
trafficking victim. Consent is irrelevant. But in many states, prostituted
children are still arrested and treated as criminals.

There
is a civil remedy provision in the national law and in many state trafficking lawsthat entitle victims to sue their
violators for money damages. They could hire their own lawyers, frame their own
stories, and then tell it to the law. They
can be empowered to hold the perpetrators accountable. It was Catharine MacKinnon's theory in 1994, when she
was working with then-senator Joe Biden on the Violence Against Women's
Act: When the criminal justice systemfails victims of violence, the civil justice system is their only
justice."

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The average age of entry into trafficking is 12 to 14. Of the
two to four million people trafficked for sex each year, 90 percent are girls
and women who are predominately poor and disproportionately women of color. In
your documentary, Gloria Steinem spoke
of the importance of individual survivor storytelling and its relationship to
feminist legal theory. Do you agree? And can these narratives illuminate the
difference between those who maintain that they are "sex workers" and those who
have been forced into sexual servitude and are not on a path of
self-determination?

"Survivor
stories give us the details, gestures, and remembered events that make the
human story of sex trafficking real and alive. A girl in Cambodia who thought
she was going to work in a rice shop, but is sold into a brothel. A 13-year-old
in the Bronx who ends up in a hospital after a brutal beating from her pimp. As Steinem has said, "There is
nothing more important than the stories."

Last summer, the New York
Times reported on sexual
slavery in the organization of the Islamic State. The reports included survivor
accounts of rape, torture, and humiliation, but they also presented a YouTube video of where women were bought and sold for sex
"a group of men believed to be
Islamic State fighters are shown sitting in a room bantering about buying and
selling Yazidi girls on 'slave market day.'"

Marcia G. Yerman is a writer, activist, artist and curator based in New York City. Her articles--profiles, interviews, reporting and essays--focus on women's issues, the environment, human rights, the arts and culture. Her writing has been (more...)